Package management, Skype and other questions
Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:27 am
I'd rather have a standard, so that everyone puts these types of things in the same place. I knew that I could put them wherever I want. While allowing that technically is OK, if there's no specific recommendation than you're promoting a messy operating system. If the Linux overall standard doesn't have a recommendation (and it apparently doesn't have one, which is not surprising since it is 90% corporate-funded), then Linux Mint should have one, in my opinion...
Also, is there a way to figure out from synaptic or something where the package you're installing is actually hosted? I see you can browse by origin which gives a rough idea ([strike]as a newbie, I couldn't find the actual packages online[/strike] figured it out, but still don't see any metadata - where is for example the list of dependencies and such stored?), but the properties available from the contex menu doesn't show you which origin the package has.
I don't really like the Software Manager... it seems a bit clunky. When I click the "all programs", it doesn't load. The reviews are potentially interesting, but they are mainly shallow one-liners. How the score is calculated is opaque.
I would also LOVE to see which programs I went ahead and installed rather than the ones which came with the distro. I imagine this is part of the project to work on mintupdate that I heard about...
Also, the only version of Skype that comes up in the package manager is 2.2.0.35-1 even tho Skype published an (according to them) much irmproved 4.0 version per http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/ ... ter/linux/. Do they need to update that, or is there something Mint needs to do? The whole package management system is rather opaque and I would love to learn more of about its details. Tried searching SafariOnline and didn't see much. EDIT: Found out I have to "force version" in Synaptic. Awfully subtle but important trick, which I'll be trying in a bit...
Also, is there a way to figure out from synaptic or something where the package you're installing is actually hosted? I see you can browse by origin which gives a rough idea ([strike]as a newbie, I couldn't find the actual packages online[/strike] figured it out, but still don't see any metadata - where is for example the list of dependencies and such stored?), but the properties available from the contex menu doesn't show you which origin the package has.
I don't really like the Software Manager... it seems a bit clunky. When I click the "all programs", it doesn't load. The reviews are potentially interesting, but they are mainly shallow one-liners. How the score is calculated is opaque.
I would also LOVE to see which programs I went ahead and installed rather than the ones which came with the distro. I imagine this is part of the project to work on mintupdate that I heard about...
Also, the only version of Skype that comes up in the package manager is 2.2.0.35-1 even tho Skype published an (according to them) much irmproved 4.0 version per http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/ ... ter/linux/. Do they need to update that, or is there something Mint needs to do? The whole package management system is rather opaque and I would love to learn more of about its details. Tried searching SafariOnline and didn't see much. EDIT: Found out I have to "force version" in Synaptic. Awfully subtle but important trick, which I'll be trying in a bit...